Jonathan Ames' Drunken Rant, and the Winners, at the East Coast WGA Awards

So spoke Jonathan Ames, the super-drunk writer and director of HBO’s recently cancelled “Bored To Death” during last night’s Writers Guild Awards. He was visibly bitter when presenting the awards for Long Form teleplay, for which three of the four nominees were HBO shows.

Drunk as he was, his impromptu rant about HBO, marijuana and prosecco was the undisputed highlight of the evening at the WGA’s east coast awards program.

The BB King Ballroom, just off Times Square, was packed with writers and their dates for the show, which was hosted by SNL’s Rachel Dratch. Much of the show went off without a slip-up, with Dratch delivering some good jokes (it’s a writers’ awards show!) and a great sketch where she performed a scene study as George Clooney’s comatose wife from “The Descendants.”

But as the night wore on and the liquids kept coming, the gaffes flew and the laughter grew. And when the New York audience wasn’t booing every mention of Los Angeles, they were worshipping at the feet of actor Mandy Patinkin, who was there to accept two awards for his show, “Homeland.”

The night was not without its more precious moments, though. Soap opera legend Claire Labine accepted the WGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and took the opportunity to mourn her medium, eloquently chiding networks for canceling daytime dramas rather than creatively re-inventing the genre for its dedicated viewers.